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Phrase of the week: my eyes are bigger than my belly / your eyes are bigger than your belly

Do you sometimes get really hungry and overestimate how much you can eat? Perhaps you put too much food on your plate, or you cut a piece of cake which is far bigger than you can really eat? Or maybe you bought more food than you could possibly eat?

 

In these cases we would say “your eyes are bigger than your belly”. It means that you have overestimated how much food you can realistically eat – perhaps because you are so hungry or perhaps you really like that particular dish/cake.


Example:


You meet some friends for brunch and the restaurant has a brunch buffet. At the end of the brunch your friend asks you:

 

Friend: “Are you not going to clear your plate?”

 

And you answer:

 

You: “No, I can’t! My eyes were bigger than my belly.”

 

This means that you put too much food on your plate and you can’t eat it all. You overestimated what you could eat.


overestimate

überschätzen

 

belly (slang, slightly childish word for stomach)

Bauch

perhaps

vielleicht

 

to clear your plate

Teller leer essen

 

 

A cat which ate too much

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